Sylvan Datalogger

Heights

Tree heights are collected as a series of laser range finder data packets. The procedure is to fire the laser range finder once for each box in figure 2 in the order they are listed in the table. Figure 1 illustrated what is being sighted when using the laser range finder. These are the familiar points used in all ehight measurement by forestry field crews.

Figure 1. Diagram of tree height measurement.

The steps include:

Determine the horizontal distance from the measurers location to the front surface of the tree. As in all other distance measurements the radii of the tree is added to the this distance.

Next we use the clinometer feature of the ranging laser to determine the angle to the base of the tree. Note that a valid slope distance in not necessary for this measurement.

Next we shoot the angle to the merchantable top of the tree. In hardwood species the merchantable topis is often determine by forking and forking is very difficult to predict by traditional methods. if you want to depend on taper based merchantable height skip over this measurement.